Posts

Three No-Brainer Outsourcing Opportunites for Growing Businesses

/in /by

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Business Expansion|Three No-Brainer Outsourcing Opportunites for Growing BusinessesIs your growing business falling behind your competitors because you’re stretched too thin? Entrepreneurs know better than anybody that there are only so many hours in a day. If you’re spending too many of them attempting to manage your whole operation and too few of them doing the creative thinking and growth-oriented work required to take your business further, you need to think about outsourcing.

If you’d like to outsource the most draining aspects of your operation in the hope of a hassle free business expansion, this list of the most widely utilized outsourcing options will help you make up your mind.

Let Nerds Handle Your IT

The word ‘nerd’ is hardly an insult these days, as coders and IT professionals have all but taken over the world! Managed IT is making its mark on the small-to-medium sized business environment, and for good reason. Research has shown that over half of small to medium-sized businesses are outsourcing at least some of their IT requirements, while a further third would like to in the near future. The benefits are huge. Aside from the peace of mind that you get from handing over responsibility for your systems and sensitive data to experts, you also stand to save as much as 40% compared to hiring your own full-time IT team. IT services are also a great option for growing companies who need to be able to scale their operations at short notice in response to increased demand.

Hit the Snooze Button on Payroll

Let’s be honest: doing payroll is not fun. There is a lot of technical detail and compliance to get your head around, and if you make a mistake, it’s your team who suffers, and that’s the last thing you want. Many small businesses find HR and tax compliance a complete headache until the happy day that they opt to outsource their payroll needs. Handing over this highly complex work to skilled professionals—or at least investing in specialized software—is well known to drastically improve your compliance stats and reduce your operating costs. It’s worth pointing out that the savings are not small change, either: businesses that outsource their payroll needs typically save 20% more than companies that handle payroll in-house. No brainer, right? Add to the savings the increased trust you stand to build within your team, as payroll mistakes and accounting errors are ruled out for good, and you’d be crazy not to take advantage of this outsourcing option as soon as you have the means.

Content Marketing

Otherwise known as blogging, content marketing is taking the SME word by storm. If your business does not have a blog yet, you are missing out. Why? Because not only will your blog supercharge your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts, but it can help you to build a solid relationship with your customer. It can also position your business as a credible source of key info on the issues your audience cares about, thus fostering brand trust and enhancing the reputation of your company in the wider arena. A blog is also extremely handy for HR and recruitment purposes, as it provides an excellent way for potential new employees to get a flavour of what working for you will be like.

When business is getting busier by the day, handling everything yourself is not likely to be the answer. Depending on your needs, outsourcing could be the ideal solution. These ideas will help you find the right service for your business.

6 Ways To Create Exceptional Content In Your Business

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, 6 Ways To Create Exceptional Content In Your BusinessContent is king in today’s digital age, and every brand needs to consider ways in which they can make exceptional content that will help them to stand out from the crowd and impress their target customer. This is easier said than done, particularly in a time where every company is creating a steady stream of content, but there are a few ways that you can make sure that all of your content is of the highest standard. Many brands make the mistake of believing that it is a case of quantity over quality, but you need to make sure that your content is engaging, valuable, and entertaining.

1. Consider Your Target Audience

You should always keep your target audience in mind when creating any kind of content. Consider what the audience’s wants, needs, and interests are and find ways to solve common problems that they might face in their life. The content should be thought-provoking while providing them with helpful knowledge.

2. Create Original Content

A lot of businesses simply steal ideas from their competitors and rework it, but this will not achieve the desired results and could negatively impact your SEO. Instead, try to come up with original ideas for your content, which will stand out from the crowd.

3. Use A Variety Of Media

People are bombarded with text and image content consistently throughout the day. While this is still a worthwhile form of content, you also need to make sure that you are looking into other forms of media to engage your target audience. Video is the most effective as this is highly engaging and can make it easy for you to communicate your desired message. You need to make sure that you are producing high-quality films with cameras from Choosist.com and professional-standard video editing software.

4. Create Strong Headlines

You will never get hits or communicate your message to your target audience without a strong headline. The headline should catch their attention, evoke emotion, and make them want to know more. Take time when crafting a headline and try a few different options until you find one which will engage the audience.

5. Keep It Concise

People these days have a short attention span, so you need to keep all content concise, pointed, and valuable. Eliminate all fluff and get to the point quickly. People will not spend their time skimming through an enormous blog post when they are looking for information.

6. Add Personality

Nobody wants to consume content which is bland and faceless. Try to get your personality across in the content, whether this is by using humor, sharing a personal story, and/or by using the first-person language. Although you should get your personality across, you must avoid being informal and unprofessional and never post anything which could be divisive or considered offensive.

Most businesses understand the importance of creating content, yet not many know how to create exceptional content that will get them noticed. The above are a few strategies to try and should deliver immediate results and help you to engage your target audience.

7. Hire a Content Writer

As a business owner, you will soon find yourself on the hamster wheel of content creation. Although you may be able to handle this task for a certain amount of time, you may want to outsource it to a professional who can get you the results you’re looking for. With managed marketing solutions you can seek help with content marketing and social media solutions, so that you can put more time and focus into other areas of your business. Expanding your horizons when it comes to creating content will drive more traffic to your business and will help you to build your credentials as an industry leader more quickly.

3 Marketing Processes Your Business Should be Automating Right Now

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Marketing Automation| 3 Marketing Processes Your Business Should be Automating Right NowThere isn’t enough time to do everything, yet most small business owners try. When it comes to marketing your business, there are things you can do to automate some of these processes. Automation helps you make sure everything is done, ensures everything is done at the right time, and helps give you more time to focus on tasks that can’t be automated. If you haven’t started automating some of your marketing processes yet, give these three a try first.

Lead Generation and Tracking

There’s a “contact us” button on the website, but just getting potential customers to contact the business is the first step for lead generation. Emails should be responded to immediately. Even a 30-minute delay can decrease the chance of the email leading to a qualified lead. Instead, start automating lead generation, so emails are responded to immediately. These are form responses, but there are ways to make it sound more personal for the customer, so they know they’re important to the business.

Along with automating these responses to generate more leads, use automation to track the leads. It’s possible to use white label reporting software to generate CRM and other reports automatically and have them sent to your email address. The lead management software tracks everything, then sends a PDF with the information neatly arranged, so it’s easy to keep an eye on lead generation for the business and how effective the current marketing processes are.

Social Media Marketing

Social media is used by just about everyone today, so it’s an excellent way to generate new leads for a business. However, to get the most from social media, it’s a good idea to post every few hours. This ensures posts are seen, but it can be difficult for someone to do all of this by hand. Content needs to be created or curated, then posted on social media websites at just the right time to have the biggest impact.

Instead of spending a couple of hours every day just curating and posting on social media, automate some of this. Automating software can find content that your potential customers might be interested in and automatically share it at set times. It’s still a good idea to post original content periodically, but this makes it easy to post more and to keep the business in the view of potential customers.

Email Marketing

Automation is great for sending emails as soon as a customer reaches out, but there’s more that can be done here. Email marketing campaigns, when done right, can be highly effective. Use automation to make sure an email campaign is more effective by sending out emails at exactly the right time. Evaluate your current email marketing plan to see how it can change and improve with the use of automation and find out how much time you can save. When emails can be written at any time, even months ahead, and sent out at the perfect time to grab a potential customer’s attention, they can lead to a lot more conversions.

There’s no need to try to do everything on your own. Instead, try implementing these automation techniques to reduce your workflow, make your marketing processes more effective, and to bring in more leads for your business. Automating the right tasks can make a huge difference in how much time you spend on marketing and can leave you with more time to work on tasks that just can’t be automated.

How to Dominate Content Marketing in 2019

/in /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Content Marketing|How to Dominate Content Marketing in 2019Content marketing is constantly changing, and you have to readjust your strategies if you want to stay on top of the game. While some time-tested tactics will still get you results in 2019, others could actually ruin your efforts and have you all the way back to square one. In this article, we’re going to give you a few tips that will allow you to dominate content marketing in 2019.

Make Sure You Have the Basics Down

Before you go to the chalkboard, you have to take a look at your current strategy. This is the time to gather your team and look at what worked and what needs to be adjusted. Examining your content strategy will allow you to quickly see if your previous plans are still relevant today.

You also need to have a clear and documented content strategy and make sure that everyone is aware of it. In a recent study by CMI, it was shown that businesses that had a clear content marketing strategy written down had five times more chances of being successful. Conversely, only 39% of B2B marketers said that they had one.

A good content marketing plan starts with identifying the main challenges that need to be addressed and the steps that will be taken to overcome them. Some points of interests such as SEO and lead generation are a great start, and you can start forming your strategy around them depending on what objectives you’re trying to meet.

Stay on Top of Recent Trends

You also have to be able to stay on top of recent trends and make sure that you incorporate them into your strategy when possible. For instance, live video is set to take off this year, and unless you have a strategy that will allow you to engage your audience directly, you’ll miss out on a lot of opportunities. Live video and webinars are a great way to build authority in your niche and increase brand awareness.

Voice search is another major trend that you can’t afford to overlook in 2019. The vast majority of users use their smartphones to look up business-related content these days, and the advent of smart voice technology has made voice search more popular than ever. And it’s showing no signs of slowing down. That means that you’ll have to learn how to incorporate query-based keyword phrases in your on- and off-page content to take advantage of all this juicy traffic.

So, make sure that you’re aware of all the latest trends and see which ones could be the most beneficial and easier to implement. If you want to learn about some of the biggest content marketing trends for 2019, you can check here for details.

Improve the Way you Distribute

The way we distribute content is also changing and many of the channels we used to use are slowly becoming obsolete. Creating good content is all fine and well, but unless you know how to distribute it properly, all of your efforts will be in vain.

First, you have to ask some specific questions to tell which distribution channels you should focus on. How do people get to your site? What devices does your audience use the most? What are your best performing acquisition channels? What content promotion frequency seems to work the best? What’s the ideal time to push content?

These are all questions that will allow you to fine-tune your distribution strategy and get better results. You’ll be able to adjust your distribution to fit your audience’s needs and become more efficient.

Focus on Your Best Performing Channels

You should also make sure that most of your efforts are towards your best-performing channels. Then you’ll be able to test the waters with other channels. And just because all of your competitors seem to be successful on one particular channel, it doesn’t mean that you should be there as well. If your competition is killing it on Twitter, for instance, it might be because of other factors that you may not be aware of. So, keep doing what works for you, and try studying what others are doing that makes them so successful on channels that might be underperforming for you.

However, always make sure that you’re aware of new channels and set some of your time and budget strictly for experimentation. Being ahead of the curb with new channels and technologies could give you a serious edge over the competition once they catch up. Whether it’s Facebook live, AI, or Snapchat, you have to leave space for trial and error. While you may fall flat on your face with some of them, you could also be at the forefront of innovation and already be ahead of the race when your competition comes in.

Narrow your Audience Down

Narrowing your audience down allows you not only to create a tailor-made marketing strategy that speaks to them but also allows you to stop wasting time on audiences that you’ll never be able to reach. You shouldn’t try to always reach the widest audience by any means necessary. It’s much better to concentrate your efforts on an audience that has more chances of actually converting later on.

If you narrow down your niche and learn how to deliver the kind of content that makes them tick, you will waste less time and money and will be able to increase engagement and your return on investment.

You also have to constantly put your core audience first and adapt to their needs. Look at advanced data and analyze their behavior. If their needs seem to be changing, these changes also have to be reflected in your strategy. New technologies, trends, and products can drastically change your audience’s habits, so making sure that you adapt will ensure that they stay engaged.

Conclusion

Dominating content marketing is possible if you have the proper plan in place and are committed to focusing your efforts on the right channels. Also make sure that you always keep track of results, have clear objectives, and constantly work to improve and embrace new strategies.

6 Ways to Give Your Content Marketing a Boost

/in , /by

If you’re investing your company’s time and resources into blogging, social media, video content and other forms of content marketing, you will almost certainly need to have some form of strategy. Otherwise, it can feel like you are creating content just for the sake of it. With that in mind, let’s take a look at six ways you can give your content marketing a boost and get the results that your business needs to be a success:

Have a Set Plan in Place

Creating content without a plan will soon see your creative minds getting lost, and you could find yourself stuck for ideas as a result. There needs to consistency across the board, including writing and uploading blog posts on your website that is filled with insights, knowledge and helpful advice for your readers, which are then shared on your social media channels like Facebook and Twitter.

These posts should be happening on a regular basis, and many should be planned out in advance, so you keep on message and ensure that you’re not repeating yourself. Your readers/subscribers will soon move elsewhere for their content if you’re not piquing their interest on a regular basis.

The same rules apply to your social media accounts. It’s great to have your fingers in all the social pies, but if you don’t have a plan in place, you’re just going to neglect these valuable and powerful tools and waste your time. Understand each platform, and this includes understanding what content works and when is best to post on each social network. This way you can start devising your content plan accordingly.

Know Your Goals

While it’s great to have a content marketing plan, the best way to boost it towards getting great results, including more newsletter subscribers, social shares, and blog comments, is to know your goals, and then plan and focus your content towards achieving those goals.

If your end goal is to boost the number of book sales, offering your subscribers access to discount codes and advance copies is the kind of content marketing method that will help you achieve this goal. Sit down as a team and talk through your individual goals, before making a wider decision on the content and the marketing methods that are going to help you achieve those goals.

Measure Your Success with Tracking

Whatever your content marketing goals, you need to be tracking them in order to know for sure what methods are having success and which ones need tweaking in order to achieve more success. Tools like Google Analytics will help you keep tabs on your web traffic- including where the traffic is coming from (emails, social media, Google searches, etc.) and which of your posts and/or pages are bringing in the most traffic. If you have product pages on your site, it will also highlight how people find them, and if there are any holes in the navigation of your website that is preventing them from finding them quickly and making a purchase.

Every social media tool will have its own insights feature, which means you will be able to see which posts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and co. are getting the most likes, shares and most importantly sales, as a result of following links to your products and services pages.

Encourage Collaboration in Meetings

While it’s great to have access to the best plans, tools, and platforms, what really matters is having the best team around your business, in order to create the best content for all of your channels. Some businesses have set creative teams for these tasks, whereas others believe that content marketing should be a collaborative process that everybody should be a part of, and this is why meetings are so important.

Many businesses have forgotten the power of face-to-face meetings because of the access to technology that makes remote working more affordable and easy. However, there is nothing more creative and rewarding than getting a bunch of people together, getting the whiteboard out and brainstorming ideas as a team. For a great post about the importance of the whiteboard in the office, read more here. You will have more content, more ideas, and a more collaborative environment if you take the time to have regular meetings with your team.

Find the Ideal Home for Each Piece of Content

Ask any social media expert, and they will tell you. It doesn’t matter if you have the great written blog post, the most epic photo or the most informative video content. If it’s in the wrong place, nobody will see it, and it won’t get the results and rewards it deserves.

Knowing where to place your content is essential to reaping the rewards it can bring. For example, Instagram is perfect for photos and short video content, so put your best content in these forms to that account. For blog posts, stats and insights, try Twitter, which is more of a conversational social platform. Facebook is the best place for your more sales-oriented posts, and is great for placing news, discounts and offers because it’s wide reach.

If you’re not sure what to post and where to post it, test your content on different mediums and track the results with Google Analytics. You’ll soon see what works and what doesn’t.

Have Both Free and Premium Content Available

Customers like to feel like they’re being rewarded for their loyalty to businesses, and you can grant this to them via your content marketing by giving them access to plenty of free content, including blog posts and special offers via email. However, to give your content marketing an extra boost, try the addition of premium content.

This could come in a variety of forms, including e-books, paperbacks, podcasts, audiobooks, one-to-one consultations, advance warning of tickets for events you might be running. Whatever you decide to do, make sure that you track the success of the premium offers, and get something in return, which in the vast majority of cases, is contact information. These details could be very useful when you have new products and services to offer, and could massively boost your sales as a result.